Brewing Love
by CharmedSkye92
Summary: When a pretty girl stops into the coffee shop (for tea no less) he slips his number onto her cup in hopes she'll text him back. Jack/Aqua


**Because what spiral into a ship isn't complete without a coffee shop AU, am I right?**

 **This ship can be thanked/blamed on me and my roleplay partner Zuyuri respectively playing these characters. And us deciding Aqua needed a fun loving guy in her life to help make up for all the darkness.**

* * *

"Have a good day."

At the start of his third semester, Jack had been lucky enough to get a job as a barista at his university. He had managed to schedule most of his classes so that they didn't start until 10 am or 12pm. Giving him both late starts and early dismissals. However, the need for a bit of green to supplement his income ate away at those. He had to sacrifice his late starts for early morning shifts at the coffee shop which was hell because everyone needed coffee in the morning. Surprisingly, he got paid decently for it being an hourly job. And it looked good on his future resume.

Plus, it took some financial strain off his father North. The man adopted him when he was a boy. But he was getting older. He had to worry about himself. Jack didn't want to keep relying on the man's over abundant generosity forever. It was why he was going to college in the first place, so that someday, when he was older, when North needed him the most, Jack could be the one to take care of him. However, the job wasn't without its perks. Free coffee and tea whenever he wanted, occasional free food, a paycheck, work ethic being drilled into him and socializing with people was nice.

Jack's true joy came from watching near zombified humans turn into sentient beings.

All nighters would do that to you.

The girl he had just served smiled before taking her cup and heading out. If her heavy bag was anything to go off of, Jack assumed she was going to be hitting the library. The coffee would come in handy then, no matter how chipper she appeared already. Some people were morning people – like her. Others were barely alive and he wondered if it would be bad if he offered to set up an IV drip straight into their veins. Needless to say, there was a reason he wasn't studying medicine. He would make a lousy doctor.

Granted, in his opinion, not everyone made such a glorious recovery. Like that asshole Pitch Black in his trigonometry class. That guy was always going to be a zombie. He didn't seem to realize that 'emo' was a phase best saved for high school. Honestly, Jack wouldn't be surprised to see the guy become some evil CEO who wouldn't give paid vacations or health care benefits to employees if he could help it, or if he did only the bare minimum.

The next person in line stepped up. Jack found himself staring. Never before had he seen so much blue on a person: blue hair, blue sweater, blue satchel, blue eyes. He managed to reorient himself and smile. Her hair was unusual, but he didn't have room to talk. He had white hair. She fished her wallet out of her bag before looking up at him. For a second, she looked almost surprised to see him. There was a bit of pink tinting her cheeks and he couldn't help but think how adorable that was.

"Hey, what can I get you?"

"I… Um, a mint tea please?" she said uncertainly.

"Sure thing."

She laid the coins out on the counter to pay for her drink while Jack went to get the tea bags. He managed to give her a discreet once over. She was cute. Still blushing and still pointedly not looking at him. That could be a good sign. So he took her cup and a pen before scribbling his phone number, his name and a snowflake next to his last name. He hoped she wouldn't outright laugh at him when she saw it.

He then handed her the tea. His palms grew cold and sweaty as the nerves kicked in. What had he done? That was so bold? She was going to freak out when she saw what he had put on her cup! But she took the drink with a smile. Jack blushed feverishly. It should be illegal to be so damn cute. Seriously. It gave her some unfair advantage over him.

"Have a good day!" she chimed.

She took her cup and headed out of the shop. No indication she knew what he did or even noticed his number on the cardboard. Jack fought back his disappointment. With her went his hope she might see it. He supposed she could always see it later, but what were the chances she even remembered the barista who had served her the drink? Slim to none. So he let his shoulders drop and moved onto the next customer.

"Yeah, you too..." he sighed.

* * *

Jack actually tripped over himself the next day when the woman came in again. He was working in the back, doing dishes. Fortunately, this meant he didn't have to face her directly after his embarrassing flop to ask her out. Unfortunately, this meant that his co-worker Ventus took her order instead. He watched from the window in the back burning green with envy as she chatted Ven up. It was slow, so Ven didn't mind talking with the patrons.

Regardless, Jack knew that more than anything, he wanted to be the one on the other side of the window. He wanted to fix her drink and chat. But then again, he gave her his number but she didn't text him. Maybe it was too forward? Maybe she got scared off since he was a literal stranger who had just slipped her his number? He sighed and focused on the dirty dishes. He was after all just a barista. What could he offer a girl like her? He was used to being ignored by the opposite sex. And more than once, he had 'fallen' for girls who were already taken.

She was pretty enough to be dating someone else. And considering the heavy book bag she had with her, she was smart too. She wouldn't settle for a guy like him. He wasn't a good student. He was just getting by with both his grades and money. He was working so his dad didn't worry about him. He blamed caffeine. He clearly hadn't had enough the day he first saw her. It made him think he had a shot with a stranger like her.

"Someone put their phone number on your cup?" he heard Ven asked.

"That's right. It was a boy with white hair."

Her voice was soft, warm and kind. Jack felt dread seep into his veins. Hearing her speak of him made him want to curl into a ball and die. So she had seen it after all and hadn't texted him, not even to shoot him down. Was this... going to be a one to one face down? Was she going to call him out in front of the whole shop and humiliate him? Jack wondered if he could flee to the back door and just take lunch early? Things weren't _that_ busy in the shop, right? A stern look from his supervisor kept him in his spot. Bunnymund knew exactly the thoughts that flittered through Jack's mind.

"Is he working today?"

 _No_ , he silently plead to his co-worker, _Ven please say no!_ He couldn't bear it if she shot him down in front of everyone. Dying would be preferable to the sheer mortification. Not to mention the endless teasing his co-workers would put him through for this. He could practically feel the waves of smugness wafting off Bunnymund. The Aussie would likely hold this over him for a while. Because Jack thought he was 'so smooth' that he could just slip a girl his number and she would jump to respond.

"Yeah! He's in the back!" Ven chirped. "Hey, Jack! There's someone up front to see you!"

Jack grimaced. He supposed Ven meant well, but he was going to... well, Jack wasn't going to do anything mean to Ven, maybe just give him the cold shoulder or a stern lecture. He sighed. Time to face the music, he supposed... Jack came out from the back, feigning confidence as he did. The woman's expression with nothing short of the utmost guilt. Did she feel bad she was going to call him out on what he did? Was she embarrassed?

"Hi..." she said softly. "I'm Aqua."

"Jack." he replied.

She shyly shifted in her spot, suddenly having a hard time looking at him, which he honestly couldn't believe. She sounded so confident before. It seemed that she was as confrontation shy as he was. Or maybe it was just the situation? He supposed that talking to a stranger who slipped you his number fell into a category of odd things to do, as well as uncomfortable. He remembered his brief panic attack when she had walked in the second time.

"I uh... wanted to text you last night... but..."

She offered a rueful grin before reaching into her bag. The phone she pulled out was the most thoroughly smashed phone he had ever seen in his life. He was surprised that her phone didn't crumble away into dust in her very hands. It was the sorriest looking phone to walk the earth. Needless to say, she was due for a replacement. It also hindered her texting him even if she _did_ see his message. But she had seen it, that was why she was there. His heart raced in his chest. It was a tossup. Good or bad. Yes or no.

"It fell down a flight of stairs." she explained.

"Yeah... That'll do it." he said.

He tried to keep from laughing but when he heard her giggle, he couldn't help but do so himself. He would hate to see her cut up her fingers trying to text him on that garish rock of glass and tech. He almost wanted to check her fingers to make sure she hadn't tried to message him on it. But she lacked bandages so he could only assume she had thought better of it. Texting someone on a damaged phone was not worth the glass splinters or the cuts along the finger tips. Texting should not mean pain.

"I didn't want you to think I wasn't interested."

"So you came back just to tell me that?"

The woman blushed and nodded. So she was interested in him. He felt like crowing in victory. He had gotten the attention of a pretty girl, enough so she came back to apologize for not texting him in a situation that was completely understandable. Still, he was probably grinning at her like an idiot. He had to shake himself and be serious otherwise she might reconsider telling him she wasn't entirely against going out with him.

"Well, yeah," she confirmed.

"Can I take you out sometime?" he asked.

"I thought you'd never ask."

* * *

 **And I'll leave it here. It's just a little one shot I wanted to get down on while it was in my head. Maybe after I finish other stories I'll expand more on it.**


End file.
